HeWolf
by Sealed Envelope
Summary: The thing Remus Lupin wanted most was to go to Hogwarts and learn how to use magic, but at five years old, his future was taken from him by a werewolf.  But Dumbledore isn't prejudiced like rest of the wizards, and lets him attend. SheWolf from Remus' POV
1. Story Information

"_**He-Wolf**_**" Overview – Story Information**

**Story Name: **"_He-Wolf_"

**Rating:** T

**Beta(s): **HP Funny

**Extended Summary: **At five years old, Remus Lupin's life was changed forever. Cursed with lycanthropy, he had abandoned all hope of ever living a normal life, or of ever attending Hogwarts. But Headmaster Dumbledore is more understanding than anyone else he had ever met, other than his parents, and is willing to let him go to school as long as he doesn't tell anyone about his condition. Arriving at school, he had planned to simply blend into the shadows, but when a certain group of marauders, two Gryffindor girls, and a certain Slytherin take interest in him, will he be able to keep his secret?

**Pairings:**

Remus Lupin / Laura Kittson (OC)

James Potter / Lily Evans

**Warnings:** Slightly AU

_**Information for the updating of this story can be found at l6ur6(dot)wordpress(dot)com/fan-fiction-stories/gender-wolf/he-wolf/ . The entire story can also be found there as well.**_


	2. Cursed

**Chapter 1 – **_**Cursed**_

Five-year-old Remus Lupin was lying in his bed as his father read him a bedtime story. Lately, his parents had been whispering anxiously to each other, glancing worriedly at him from time to time, and his father had been looking increasingly nervous. It was nice to see him smiling.

"_Hogwarts is a magnificent place,"_ Remus' father spoke. _"There are four Houses: Gryffindor, Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff, and Slytherin. Gryffindor is for those who are brave and just, Ravenclaw is for those who enjoy learning, Hufflepuff is for the loyal and caring, and Slytherin is for those who are cunning and ambitious._

_When you go to Hogwarts at eleven years old, you'll learn how to cast spells, and use magic. The classes are fun, and the teachers are all different. Someday, you'll be a great wizard._

_There are hundreds of staircases too, and over fifty secret passages…_

Remus slowly nodded off to the sound of his fathers voice as the sun sunk below the trees. As the night progressed, the clouds drifted across the sky, letting the moonlight flicker across the ground and into the sleeping boy's window.

Remus' eyes snapped open as a loud, harsh scream rang through the forest. He scrambled out of bed and ran over to the window. He couldn't see anything, but that didn't mean anything. It sounded like someone was hurt, and he knew that he should help. That's what his mom and dad would do. He ran out of the house and into the forest, leaving the door open behind him in his haste to help.

The scream came again, but it sounded lower this time, less human. Remus shuddered, and continued on his way, the dark shadows of the forest lit by a full moon.

"Remus! Stop!" Remus heard his father's voice calling from behind him, but he didn't listen. He wanted to help. Remus ran faster, weaving nimbly through the undergrowth as another scream echoed through the forest. It didn't sound like a scream though, it was more of a growl, and was louder and longer. Then there was silence. Remus slowed down and came to a stop in a clearing. The moon shone clearly through the opening in the trees. Remus could hear his dad's running behind him, but his footsteps were getting fainter. Remus' breathing increased as he looked around, the silence pressing in on him, making the shadows seem more pronounced. Maybe this wasn't such a good idea after all.

A twig snapped to his right, seeming ten times louder in the deafening silence. Another snap came, more to his front, and heavy panting reached Remus' ears. There was another minute of silence, with Remus looking around warily. Just as he was ready move again, a loud howl split the darkness, paralyzing Remus with fear. He took one step back, then another. As another bone piercing howl tore through the night, Remus turned around and ran in the opposite direction.

Remus sprinted as fast as he could, ignoring the trees and bushes as they whipped across his face and arms, only seeking to avoid the monster that was now chasing after him, its paws snapping twigs and bushes as it ran. "DADDY!" he screamed as he ran.

"Remus!" his dad cried from somewhere in front of him. "Where are you?"

The creature behind him grew louder and faster, and Remus could hear it panting. He could imagine its jaws dripping with saliva, its eyes gleaming with malice. Remus glanced behind him and saw a pair of bright amber eyes glaring at him before he tripped and stumbled over an extending tree root. He fell to the ground, and the beast leapt on top of him, pinning him to the ground. Remus screamed as the monster sank its razor sharp teeth into his shoulder.

He saw red as the monster lifted its head again, preparing to sink its teeth into his throat. Just as it began to lunge, there was a flash of red light, and the beast was off of him, but the pain remained, now spreading rapidly to his entire arm and his chest. He was barely aware of movement around him; the pain was too great.

His father's face was suddenly swimming in front of him. He was saying something, but Remus couldn't hear him. He was fading away, slipping into unconsciousness. He felt himself sink into the darkness.

When Remus woke up, he was in St. Mungo's. He was confused at first; no one would talk to him at first, and no one would tell him why he hadn't been released from the hospital yet. Magic could fix anything, couldn't it? It wasn't until his parents showed up, his father silent and his mother sobbing brokenly that he realized what had happened. The animal that had bit him was a werewolf, and it had transferred the curse onto him. From now on, every full moon he would turn into a wolf, just like the one he had been so afraid of.

Remus' parents tried to convince him that everything would be fine, and that nothing would change, but he didn't believe them. The looks of fear, disgust, and hate the healers gave him were enough to dispel any hope.

Remus eventually recovered enough to be removed from the hospital, but they didn't go back to their small home just at the edge of the forest. Instead, Remus' mom drove – Remus' dad couldn't drive – them to another house, also near a forest, but this time miles and miles from other homes; the closest town was a half-hour drive away. Remus looked at his mom, confused.

She glanced as his father, shook his head slightly – he had barely moved at all the entire car ride, let alone talk – before responding. "Well," she said nervously. "When you become a werewolf, you –" she broke off, fighting a sob. "You can't control yourself. W-We needed a house with a b-basement so that you won't h-hurt anybody."

Remus' eyes were wide at the realization that he wouldn't be able to control himself, and he felt tears threatening to fall. Nobody had told him about what being a werewolf would be like before. Would he be like the one that bit him, running free in the forest? Would he hurt someone else? Then he remembered what his mom had said – basement. They were going to lock him in a basement.

Remus closed his eyes against the tears – his mom was crying enough already; she had started sobbing again right now. He would be strong for her.

Being strong was a lot harder than he had thought. Over the next couple of weeks, his mother was crying frequently, his father was distant and brooding, and many Healers frequently dropped by their new home. When they did, he was expected to stand still while they waved their wands at him, leered unpleasantly at him, and jammed long, pointy needles into him much harder than necessary.

To get away from everything, Remus holed himself up in his room. He had discovered a passion for reading; not only was it an almost-suitable replacement for children his age, but it allowed him to escape into another world. Remus would pretend that he was in the place of the main characters, seeking solace from his own life, which was slowly crashing down around him.

He didn't have anything to look forward to now; his parents had sat him down and told him of all the limitations of others of his kind. With a wave of despair, he realized the full implications of what his mom and dad had told him.

He couldn't go to Hogwarts.

So Remus hid from the pain – his and his parents – and tried to escape from reality, desperately trying to crush down the tendrils of fear that grew stronger with each passing day. Time flew by – much too quickly, in Remus' opinion – and soon it was the first full moon since that night a little under a month ago.

And for the first time in that month, Remus let his tears fall as the sun went down and his father escorted him down into the basement. He cried along with his mother as the door to the basement, magically enchanted to be extremely strong, closed behind him, and left him standing in the middle of an empty room, completely naked – apparently he would ruin his clothes if he wore them during a… _transformation_.

As the many, magically reinforced locks slid closed with echoing clangs, the word held much more fear than it had in the past days in nights. Remus was terrified. The fear grew and grew with each passing second, until; somehow, he felt the moon rise above the horizon.

Everything was still, hovering in an imperfect balance for one wonderful, despicable moment. There was no sound, no fear or disgust, and the colors in his vision were perfectly and horribly matched. He could suddenly smell everything: the sweet, floral, fragrance of his mother, the woodsy scent of his father, and the clean, healthy smell of the forest just a hundred yards away. Half of a smile spread across Remus' face.

And then the pain hit.

He screamed.


	3. Letters of Acceptance

**Chapter 2 –**_** Letters of Acceptance**_

Remus Lupin tried not to be upset. He really did; it was his birthday, after all. But it was hard knowing that if he was _normal_, if he wasn't a monster, that he would be getting an acceptance letter into Hogwarts today. Remus had known it was coming; almost immediately after being bitten, his parents, not being able to stand seeing him being so naively hopeful, had explained that it was impossible for him to go.

So with _that_, and the full moon tonight, Remus was in a pretty bad mood. He put on a smile anyway, knowing how much stress his condition put on his parents. They had tried everything to find a cure, or something that would help just the tiniest bit, but there wasn't anything to be found but hoaxes and lies.

"Happy Birthday Remus!" his father congratulated him as he walked into the kitchen. His mother was standing at the table behind him, putting eggs and bacon on the table and grinning widely at him.

"Thanks dad," Remus said, still keeping the fake grin spread across his face.

They sat down at the table, eating in silence. Remus suspected that they knew that he wasn't genuinely happy, but they didn't say anything. There wasn't anything to say. Before the silence could get extremely awkward, Remus stood up, grabbing his plate to take over to the sink.

"You don't need to wash your dishes today," his mother told him. "It's your birthday, have some fun!"

Remus was about to protest – he didn't mind doing chores like other boys his age – when a large tawny owl fluttered in through the window. His father reached up to grab the letter off of the bird's talon – he was the only one to ever get mail – but the owl soared straight over his head and dropped the letter into Remus' hands.

The three of them stared at the letter in his hands. Not only did he not have any wizarding friends that sent him mail, but he also didn't have any Muggle friends that could have written him through the Muggle post office, the letter being redirected by owl. Completely confused, Remus neatly opened the envelope and shook open the letter.

**HOGWARTS SCHOOL of WITCHCRAFT and WIZARDRY**

**Headmaster: ALBUS DUMBLEDORE (Order of Merlin: First Class, Grand Sorc. Chf. Warlock, Supreme Mugwump, International Confed. of Wizards)**

_**Dear Mr. Lupin,**_

_**We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Please find enclosed a list of all necessary books and equipment. Term begins on September 1. We await your owl by no later than July 31.**_

_**Yours sincerely,**_

_**Minerva McGonagall,**_

_**Deputy Headmistress**_

Remus sat down heavily, letting the letter fall to the ground. It didn't mean anything, anyway. This was probably someone's idea of a sick joke. Merlin was probably laughing at him somewhere. Remus didn't have enough will to keep the mask up any longer. He sat down and put his head in his arms and cried. He hadn't cried in years – the monthly transformations had all but made him immune to the pain of anything else, and he knew that crying about a situation wouldn't help anything, so he didn't.

But now, he didn't care that crying wouldn't help, he didn't care what his parents might think of him – right now, he wanted nothing more than to be normal, and _that couldn't happen_.

And to top it all off, the school that he had wanted to go to since he was able to talk had sent him an invitation that he couldn't accept.

Merlin was probably going into hysterics, laughing at him.

His parents glanced at each other, concerned – that, or wondering whether or not he had finally snapped.

He couldn't bring himself to care, either way.

X

_**Dear Professor McGonagall,**_

_**My apologies, but I will not be able to attend Hogwarts this fall due to circumstances out of my control.**_

_**Deepest Regrets,**_

_**Remus Lupin**_

Remus sighed as he tied the letter to their old barn owl. After he had finally pulled himself together (it had taken quite a while), he had mechanically gone to get parchment and a quill to respond to the invitation. He couldn't accept, no matter how much he wanted to. He had spent the rest of the day reading, waiting for the family owl to get back from hunting, and trying to distract himself; he didn't want to start crying again. By the time the owl had finally gotten back, it was almost nightfall, and Remus was exhausted. He never did much on the day of a full moon, but he always ended up fatigued anyway.

"Remus," his mom whispered as he watched the owl fly off above the forest. "It's time." She always sounded so heartbroken, no matter how many times Remus had gone through this.

Remus gave her a weak smile, and took her hand as he followed her down to their basement. His father was waiting outside, ready to put reinforcing charms on the door, just in case my wolf-self tried to escape.

In the six years since Remus' last transformation, the basement had been thrashed so thoroughly that it was hardly recognizable as the medium-sized, grey room that he had entered as a five-year-old. The even grey walls were now coated with layers upon layers of dried blood, and large lumps of fur were congealed in the corners. There were several large cracks along the walls from where he had hurled himself against them, and the floor was reduced to rubble in some places. He hardly even grimaced – he was used to it – but his mom let out a small sob, the same as every other month, before his dad closed the door, looking at him with pity in his eyes.

He felt abruptly angry. Nobody actually thought of him as a human being – he either got looks of pity or revulsion. He was just something that people felt bad for or looked down on. Even his own father pitied him!

Remus forced himself to calm down. Over the years he had learned he transformation would be much worse if he was feeling any kind of strong emotions during the change. He would try to spare himself any unnecessary pain.

But as the moon rose above the horizon, Remus thought to himself that the amount of pain didn't actually make a difference.

X

When Remus finally woke up around noon the next day, he hurt. A lot. But that wasn't exactly new, and he didn't want to make his mom even more upset, so he tried to refrain from making any noises of pain, keeping his eyes tightly shut.

But contrary to his expectations, she wasn't murmuring worriedly to his dad under her breath, instead the tone sounded almost, _excited_. What really astounded him was another emotion in her voice that he could feel across from across the room, even though he couldn't understand the words or see her face.

Hope was a foreign emotion in Remus' household, all of them coming to an unspoken agreement that there was nothing that they could do for him. Quite frankly, Remus was relieved that they had stopped trying. None the supposed cures were working; all they did was strip them of all of the money that Remus' parents earned at their jobs.

So it surprised Remus considerably when he heard his mother whispering hopefully to his father. He risked opening his eyes, almost recoiling when the light struck his sensitive retinas. Remus squinted to where his parents were standing on the other end of the room, hunched over a letter.

He sighed. They had promised that they wouldn't spend any more money on any of the fake "cures" going around.

The noise alerted his parents, and they hurried over to his bedside, careful not to shake the bed; the smallest things caused him pain. Their faces looked down at him – his father's concerned and worried, and his mother's excited – and smiled at him when they saw that his eyes were open.

"Remus," his mother whispered. The whispering was a bit annoying – he wasn't going to get any worse if she talked any louder – but never said anything. It would hurt her.

"Hey mum. Hey dad."

"Are you okay?" she whispered worriedly.

No. "Yeah."

"How are you feeling?" she persisted.

Horrible. "Fine."

There was a bit of an awkward pause. There had been a lot of them in the past six years, and Remus had learned to just wait them out.

He didn't have to wait long.

"Remus," his father began. "We got another letter from Hogwarts. You don't mind that we read it, do you?" he asked, suddenly anxious, as he handed Remus the already-opened letter.

He unfolded it and stared in shock at the writing on the page. "No, not at all," Remus said, in a voice barely louder than a whisper.

**Dear Mr. Lupin,**

**I am aware of the special circumstances that would normally prevent you from attending Hogwarts, but I don't believe you should be kept from learning because of something out of your control. If you still wish to attend, I would like to meet with you at 6:00 on March 12 to discuss the specifics.**

**Yours sincerely,**

**Albus Dumbledore**

**Headmaster**


End file.
